A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors. We will always stop for a photo, or to hit a rope swing… Rubber side up!

Where did Prolly is Not Probably go?

It is still here, and then some. PiNP was one person’s opinion and voice. Now we are a collective – a community of diverse opinions and rich stories.

What does the Radavist mean?

Rad + Atavist = RADAVIST

Why does a porpoise surf a wave, or a sea otter slide down a rock? Atavism is a primal trait in humans and animals that drives us to do what we do – what ought to come naturally. Atavism is why we ride the way we ride; From mashing the city on a track bike to shredding the trails on full suspension. Take the time to get rad.

If you follow @thevanillaworkshop on Instagram, chances are you’ve already seen this project unfolding. Over the years, Speedvagen has been working with ENVE on their Integrated Cross Stem. This stem’s unique integrated front brake routing replaces the traditional cable hanger and the associated flex, weight, chatter and unsightly lines that come with it. Personally, I kinda liked my Funky Monkey but I’ll go with the Speedvagen mantra on this one: “Take away everything that isn’t essential and refine what’s left”.

I just installed the CX Worlds 2013 Commemorative stem on my already dialed Geekhouse Mudville and it instantly feels more patriotic. Unfortunately, I won’t be attending the CX Worlds but at least I can ride the shit out of this stem. Although, I will be missing the bourbon!

About this special limited edition stem:
Since 1950 the UCI Cyclocross World Championships has been held in, and completely
dominated by Europeans, most notably the French and Belgians. 2013 marks the first year ‘Cross
Worlds comes to the USA and heralds beginning of a more active American presence in and
around this beautifully painful sport.

The Vanilla Workshop is celebrating this inaugural event with a special limited edition version of
our Speedvagen Integrated cross stem. Painted in the Vanilla “stars” and stripes by Coat Paint
Shop. Only 13 of these stems will be produced. Pre-order your size in black or white.

Shoooooot! wish I had the cash to pick one of those up. Beautiful work!

http://profile.yahoo.com/3N6LP3TE3XZF3KLN663IJ4UZAY Craig

FreeSchwaggMan strikes again!

http://theradavist.com John Watson

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1478445831 Jeremiah Klashorst

That is a lovely idea and beautifully executed, but $550 for a stem?!?

http://theradavist.com John Watson

The non-CXWC version is $350 (linked as well) -which is +/- $100 more than the retail on a normal ENVE stem and for the routing / weight / blah blah savings, is worth it. The masking and labor is why this particular version is so much.
Paint ain’t cheap. Lemme tell you.

ok ;) forgiven. see it so many time that people expose their beautiful bikes, all nice into the last detail, and when you look closer you see a beginner tape bar job.

http://www.facebook.com/ericbaumann Eric Baumann

what do people have against cable hangers anyways? i feel like the new cool thing to do is drill holes in your stem to route it like the cool kids on the internets. for smaller frames, this actually serves a functional purpose (maintaining a certain saddle-bar drop), but for larger frames all it does is increase the distance from the stop to cable hanger – which INCREASES brake chatter. not to mention funky monkeys are awesome! just one more little piece of american made goodness you can mount up!

i like me a project as much as the next guy, but all i see here is a high end stem with a high end paint job and a little custom mod that mainly serves to boost aesthetics rather than performance.

http://theradavist.com John Watson

If it’s set up right, you’ll have less brake chatter but I’m not arguing this point with you.
Still don’t know why you’re hung up on this “cool guy” stuff – last I checked, you’re pretty cool, guy!

http://www.facebook.com/ericbaumann Eric Baumann

haha you know what i mean! sure it looks cool but drillin a stem (even a thomson) is asking for Trouble (that’s right, with a capital T).

http://theradavist.com John Watson

That’s not what Thomson says, but surely you’d know that, too, right? ;-)
This was developed with ENVE and Thomson has said its perfectly fine, too.
But believe whatever you want!

http://www.facebook.com/ericbaumann Eric Baumann

OK OK i did the google, you are right…where is the foot in mouth emoticon on this crappy website anyways?

Weight savings are great, but they tried internal routing/cable stop-integration on stems throughout the 80’s and 90’s on MTBs w/ canti brakes. I work with this style of cable routing almost everyday (I fix bikes at the local bike collective) and they almost all perform pretty poorly. In addition they’re a pain in the ass to set up, clean, and service. I can’t say any of the stems I’ve worked on cost $550, but I’m pretty dubious…

http://theradavist.com John Watson

With proper yolk height, brake pads and arm tension, this system operates just fine. I like feeling modulation and not having my brakes ride like shit. I ride a lot in environments where I need ample stopping power and never have I felt cantis to be insufficient. Very rarely do I race, but I take this bike off-road on trails frequently. Trails where even MTB riders have difficulty riding. Plenty of people have ridden with me too, I doubt they could complain about my “stopping power”.

Chances are, the 80’s MTBs you’re working on have inferior cantis, compared to what’s available today and besides, if you want braking performance, you’ll just ride disk or v-brake / mini v. Cantis are used so you can feel the braking through modulation by adjusting yolk height, spacer widths. You’ll never need to come to an abrupt, skidding stop in a cross race. It’s a race!

I don’t understand the hate here. Speedvagen is a race-machine manufacturer and their team has developed this in conjunction with one of the leading carbon manufacturers in the world. It’s for a cross bike, with cantis. Not a overly-marketed disk brake, carbon fiber race machine. This isn’t the 1980’s stems you used to pull out of junk bins, it’s just a new play on something ordinary. A designed, custom component, that in my opinion is fucking rad.

Don’t like it? Cool, no one’s forcing you to buy it. Just like no one is forcing you to buy a custom, steel race bike.

Ya know? Not being a dick, just clarifying a few points here. People tend to fixate on the misconceptions. Take Mr. Eric’s rant about “Thomson drillings not being safe” for example….

http://twitter.com/imjaybe jin.bok.jaybe.

what size stem are you running?

John Trusky

The problem with front brake chatter on cross & touring rigs is due to these kinds of set ups. These or a steerer mounted cable hanger. There were a buncha articles on this exact thing in numerous pubs a few years back, showing that as the fork flexed up, the cable would slacken and as the fork sprang back to normal cause the cable to tense up while you’re holding on to the brake, causing brake pulse. That was the chatter, and in some cases you could actually feel the lever pulse if the fork had a large amount of vertical comliance (like on Crosscheck forks say). At the shop I moonlight at we had seen this on carbon, Aluminum, and steel forks. A simple swap to a fork crown mounted hanger took care of the chatter issue and provided quieter, consistent brake power. Not as purty, not nearly as expensive, but damn effective. That said, you pay for the Vanilla name and details. They make hella sweet stuff, but in this case I don’t feel the aesthetic card trumps the function card enough for such an investment.

Ian Stone

Such a gorgeous stem. Only problem is that it makes your spacers look fugly now…

http://theradavist.com John Watson

Meh. I’m not cutting a $500 fork to fit a
stem with very low stack.

Ian Stone

The height doesn’t bother me, it’s just the way the spacers meet the stem is weird. The stem’s looks and functionability make up for it though!

Richard Smith

Is nobody here at all concerned that there are no cable adjusters in this setup?
What do you do when your pads wear?
What happens when you need to get your wheel out in a hurry and don’t have enough slack to release the brake?Also, I don’t know quite what the cable routing is doing inside that stem, but there’s gotta be a bit of a nasty kink in it.This is the stupidest thing since Speedvagen decided to drill holes right in the most stressed and structurally crucial part of their seat mast for kinked cables to saw through.
And $550!? Yank the other one; this can’t be real. It even looks awful.